[Parlour] At some point, later that night, they get back together. Perhaps they never truly separated, only waiting for Roman to return from walking (stalking) the doctor to her car. In either case, they gather, moving quietly toward an alleyway.
Perhaps they exchange words. Plans. Conversation advice.
Eventually, they move to the inevitable. They take out mirrors, or they look into dingy, puddles at their watery reflections. If they are particularly brave or suicidal, they cross without the aid of a reflection.
No matter what, passing through the gauntlet is ...
Terrible.
It is hard like pushing through glass without breaking it. It steals the breath from their lungs. It steals their outer layer of epidermus. It weakens their bones.
Their bones, which remember when the world was never like this. When the gauntlet was so easy to cross they might be stepping over a stream. Their bones which expect the world to be the same way, though it's not, and which suffers, just a little, with every reminder.
The world on the other side is bleak, dark and colourless. The buildings are squat and flat and square, in some places, the edges and rooftops sheared off, great gaping holes where a corner should be.
It is a blasted landscape, poor and pained. It is a landscape at war.
And the Wyld is not even a contestent. Nor are the Garou.
What they see are banes, flitting through holes which on the other side are windows, glass elementals shaking and shattering before coming back together, paler than before.
They see a bane slinking up the side of a building, it's claws tearing into the building's woven and clacified side. A spider click-click-chittering as it moves, snags its long, multi-jointed leg and begins to weave it into the building. What was once oily black begins to fade to grey closest to the web, the bane spinning on a dead, trapped and calcified leg to lash out.
The pizza parlour looks no different no more special than the rest. Just a building, its windows gone and gaping, its door missing, the edges of its webbing frayed.
[Roman Turner] "Dang I hate that feeling."
He gasped, sucking in breath when he managed to push through. The city was a whole lot different on this side than home was, for one thing, it was a lot more crowded and creepy feeling. He swept his hands over his body like he was checking to make sure everything crossed or sweeping off imaginary cobwebs.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She spends her time counting seconds and making sure that she knwos what she's getting into. She spends her time thinking, because she has to think about these sorts of things. She finds herself wondering. Adam finds a lot of things, but none of them are so importnat as the feeling she's dealing with, the thought of what do I do now?
There are garou with her. One she does not know. Another she knows well enough. None of them are her sisters; Alethea's come to peace with that.
The gauntlet, even for her [especially for her], is difficult to push through. Slip through, not shatter. And that is the problem. They aren't looking to shatter the glass. Shattering it would be easy. Breaking things seems to be easier than just passing. Easier to cause destruction than leave it intact.
She doesn't want to know what would happen if they just ripped the gauntlet to pieces. She's not sure what it would do. [Would it be so bad?]
The glass is weak and shaking here. Pale and breakable. Banes claw through the building. It's all the same. This is what Cabrini Green looks like.
"We need to stay together," she says. The Fury presses forward. It is either curiosity or bad decision making that makes her head on. She's looking for something... different. She's looking at everything, though. And anything her eyes will let her take in.
[Sorrow] Combat the Wyrm whereever it breeds and dwells. It breeds and dwells here. It breeds and dwells everywhere on this side of the gauntlet, in the city's poorest district, where murders are more commonly committed than even the easiest of good deeds. One world feeds the other: ourouborous. They push through the Gauntlet someplace hidden and dark, the alley, out of sight of any humans who might be watching the street through the slats of their cheap plastic (lead-laden, Chinese-manufactured) blinds, and out of sight on the dealers who have made Sully's pizza marginally successful even in the wake of their gruesome murders.
"Me too," Kora replies to Roman when they are all accounted for, her voice low and quiet. Her skin crawls, here, the substrate of being underneath her flesh as she completes a slow survey of the blasted street scene, focusing at last on the pizza parlor, her dark eyes narrowed in that direction.
"Nothing to mark the place on the outside," she says, her mouth hooking upward at the right corner. " - so let's look more closely. How," to Roman, she continues, " - are your scouting skills?"
[Roman Turner] "Well, I think I scout ok. And since we are on this side of things, ain't got no worries of hiding from regular folk."
He pulled his hat off, gave it a brief kiss and began the muscle rending, bone popping, snapping process of shifting until he was in warform. Then he pulled on the Gift of Blur, hoping it worked this time.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She nods. And the Fury waits. During this time,s he's checking her pockets for whatever talens she might have or what-have-you... alas, the Fury doesn't come up with much, which makes her frown.
"Tell us what you see?"
And, for now, she waits.
[Roman Turner] ((Man+stealth for blur))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Sorrow] "Cool," is the Skald's quiet reply. Her attention remains on Roman, intent, watching him. If he's visible, obvious - if the gift fails - she'll let him know. Some Garou seem - more in the Umbra, more real, stronger, their breeding takes on a sort of spiritual presence that imbues them with weight greater than their own renown or rank - the memory of centuries.
Kora is not one of these Garou. Roman invokes his gift, though - and Kora gives the place where the young Gaian was a strained smile. "That's not bad," she admits, her voice a lean thread, quiet and low. "Adamidas?" Then, glancing at the young Fury, the edge of another strained half-smile marking the shape of her mouth. "Remember when you couldn't talk, you learned the moon-dancer's gift? It might be worth linking us up when he's in place, so we know what's going on with him, yeah?"
[Roman Turner] He grew in size and after a bit of concentration he became a little harder to concentrate on.
"I'll go take a look and if nothing eats my face, I'll come back and get y'all?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "Depends on the benefit," she says, "if we do that, response times will be slower. A lot slower, because it can get really distracting. It's like you have to process the same amount of information in two different planes. Right now, I don't think it would be worth it."
She nods once.
[Roman Turner] He whispered out of the dark.
"Gonna slip ahead, if I run into trouble, y'all will be the second to know."
[Sorrow] "Listen," Kora says, her chin rising as she looks up and up and up the place where Roman must've been, sensing the change of mass if nothing else, her expression still has that faint smile to it. It's just her mouth, that curve, like the edge of a boomerang, like the sliver of a crescent moon against the greater shade of its absence. It does not reach her dark eyes. Her voice is firm, though, and direct. " - no heroics in this. You're taking a look and you're coming back. You're not charging in. If something notices you, skedaddle. We'll be close, yeah? Do your job and come back."
She cuts a glance at Adam, then - nodding. "Good point."
Then: when Roman whispers his intention, Kora nods, and she too changes, leaning forward as her body bulks and her joints crack and split and crack again, until she is four-pawed on the ground, wearing the more feral of their warforms.
[Parlour] This is not a quiet area. The banes wail, screech and cry. The spiders chitter, and the tips of their appendages click-clack-clacking over concrete and webbing. It is a continuous mutter of disorienting cacophony.
There is a street light some ways down. Inside the metal wells are small creatures, tiny gremlins with eyes to match the colour which they represent. They call out their roles as each come up - the green-light gremlin cheerful and bouncing. The amber-light gremlin nervous and cautious. The red-light gremlin: frazzled and panicked.
A bane slowly winds its way up the post, its tail lashing like a cat's, its legs wide-elbowed and wrapping around the post as it climbs. When it reaches the traffic light, it slowly lifts up a long clawed appendage. It is utterly silent. The green-light gremlin shrieks, crashing itself against the back of its tiny home, wailing as its dragged out, while the amber-light gremlin shrieks.
The red-light gremlin looks down, appalled, jaw agape before drawing in a visible, shaking breath and shouting out "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
In the real world: the traffic lights at the intersection go dark. Moments later, the stop light begins to flash rhythmically.
Roman, quiet and half-hidden by his gift begins to sneak, prowling toward the parlour. It is empty-eyed and dark.
[Roman Turner] Noise was good, noise helped cover the sound of his movements. He got his orders and slipped off while they were still being issued. He caught part of that gremlin/hunt event and wondered if one of the banes had eaten whatever light might of still lingered in the building. As he drew closer and closer he was straining his hearing and watching for movement in the dark openings. And he headed for the first opening that was big enough to allow his new mass inside.
[Roman Turner] per+alert
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Failure at target 7)
[Sorrow] perception + alertness
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[Rain of Brass Petals] [I see things!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 10 (Failure at target 8)
[Rain of Brass Petals] She does this because she has time now.
She takes her time, and either enjoys th emoment or just lives in it. Whatever it is, this has the Fury shifting upward, on to her warform, and gtting readly. She has to be armed. Her bow is dedicated, her aim is true, and she has about fifteen arrows left.
Fifteen's a good
By the time she looks away from the stoplight, she looks back in the building. She doesn't see a thing. Huh. The Fury cocks her head to the side and tries to peer inside. She doesn't see anything, no matter how hard she looks. Maybe they were wrong..?
[Roman Turner] He looked, he listened and so far nothing. Not only were the openings dark, but seemed to him like nothing was there. Just in case, he entered to take another look and listen.
[Parlour] Like this, in this form, Sorrow's brain is more attuned to sound, to smell, than sight. It is better than it might have been in lupus, but is still imperfect.
So the beast does not see much. What she does do is smell. Hear. Beneath the sound of cacophonic screeching of gremlins, the busy chaos of the city street on the Umbral side, she can hear a slow, careful scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape of claws from the direction of the building. She can smell the scent of old, rotted blood on the wind.
to Sorrow
[Parlour] For all the chaos around them, not much is paying attention to them. A spider crawls in front of Sorrow's feet, but does not touch her, intent on its nearby target, a nearby building's window frame, a large chunk taken from it. It begins to spin it's web, slowly uncoiling calcification from its spinnerets. A bane leaps to the ground a half dozen feet away, before leaping away again, propelled by frog-like hind legs as it leaps to the top of a building, the entire structure shaking with the impact, causing several spiders to fall, upside down to the ground.
Their legs windmill uselessly, chattering in panic, the pitch painfully high. From near by, a single spider clacks over, its own chittering a lower tone than that of its fellows as it begins the long suffering job of flipping each one back to its feet so it might return to its role.
Up ahead, Fate, shrouded in his gift must turn sideways to enter the building through the doorway.
[Roman Turner] He not only turned sideways to squeeze through the doorway, but he ducked his head some too because he didn't want baby spiders or something on his head. His ears swiveled as he listened for sounds of movement within.
[Sorrow] Communication is more difficult in this form. The best mind takes over. Even the high tongue is foreshortened, touched by the feral, hardly eloquent - suited for the most basic of concepts. Roman is blurred ahead, quiet. Adamidas is pulling her dedicated bow and shifting into her warform. The great hispo beast a few steps ahead of her turns, lifts her nose to the wind and sniffs audibly to indicate that there is a scent on the wind. Her great head swings in a deep arc of motion toward the pizza parlor, then she lifts her rightmost front paw, deliberately unsheathing her claws and pawing the air.
Her ears are perked, twisting toward the building, and she continues forward, halving the distance toward the pizza parlor, keeping the building within sight, her tail low with caution, her frame taut with awareness, the beast's muscles bunched and wary, ready to spring forward.
[Roman Turner] He was inside only a moment before he quickly squeezed back out the doorway and high tailed it back to give his report even if they couldn't see his ass.
"Mess inside. Stinks like rotted blood. No spiders alive in there, but something is upstairs or on the ceiling, I could hear it breathing and slipping along.
[Rain of Brass Petals] There's a report, and she listens. The Fury focuses, and relies now more on the nonverbal communication skills she's garnered over the amount of time she spent not talking. Nods once, then peers towards the place.
It smells like rotting blood.
The Spiders are dead.
Something is on the ceiling.
"If it's on the ceiling, we're going to have an issue of reach," she says.
[Roman Turner] "It was above in the dark, I heard it slithering and breathing like it done went eight seconds. Ain't no lights in there."
[Sorrow] When the Gaian's growling voice marks his return, Sorrow changes again, rearing back like a grizzly going from four legs to two. She has iron-gray fur in this form and feral yellow eyes that sweep from Adamidas to Roman and back again. "I can smell the blood from here, and heard the claws." She cuts a look back toward the building, eying it from the street, gauging her size in Crinos against the building's height, looking, too, to see how tall it is.
"Adamidas," the Fenrir returns, her voice deep in this form, no longer feminine - merely Garou, animal, beast-like, " - is there a spirit you can convince to help us, give us light?" She glances up, searching the street for the ghostly traces of streetlamps and the small spirits that inhabit them. "Fate, are there windows? Can we go in at once, or will we be exposed in the doorway when we enter?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "I'll try and come up with something. This isn't the place for fireflies... fate, when you looked inside, do you remember anything about the electrical systems? Did the building look damaged, or just dark?"
She pauses, then took a second to look at the moon. An idea formed, quietly. She grinned a little, and got on with potentially summoning an electrical gaffling. May as well try.
[Roman Turner] "There was blood all over the walls, all over everything. It's busted up in there like something went wild. I didn't notice any wires or anything, it was pretty dark in there. And yes, there are windows."
[Roman Turner] He looked between the pair, watching the changes in Kora and waiting. His job was scout and backup. So now it was a matter of waiting for orders while making sure nothing came back out the door after he had left it. Of course he couldn't resist looking at the stop light a time or two. Any other time he might of enjoyed squishing the hunting bane.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She looks at the stoplight gremlin- the ones that were left anyway. The Fury takes a few steps to the stoplight, and looks up. Its little companion was gone. The yellow light was hiding. The red light was yelling stop stop stop stop, and, really, some part of her hurt it think about this.
"Excuse me," she calls up. She sounds dismayed, but that's all that comes across in non-spirit-speech to others. She talks to the gremlins, "we need help... and... if we helped you get even for your other friend, would you help us see in there?"
[Parlour] The amber-light gremlin wails from its small little home, curled up in its farthest corner. "KILLED GREENIE. KILLED GREENIE DEAD."
The red-light gremlin continues, undaunted. "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
"GREENIE!"
Half way down the block, the bane is curled into the gutter, it's too-large body spilling over it, its body wrapped around the lifeless body of the green-light gremlin, its head flaccid and flung back, its eyes a dull dying-grass hue. Its bones crunch between the bane's teeth. It slobbers as it sucks at the marrow.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She stopped, and looked athe the Bane. And, at that moment, she wasn't pleased. Not at all. She looked at the
"They're really upset," she said, the Fury is looking at the bane. And takes an arrow out... then another, then a third, and starts to line up her shot.
"Shh," she says, and she is calm and about as comforting as she can be, "I'm sorry this happened."
With the promise something would make this better.
She turns back to the two of them and speaks.
"I know this probably isn't going to work, but we can't just let that-" she gestures to the stoplight "-happen. That's not right."
[Roman Turner] He scratched behind one tufted ear, having only understood one side of the conversation.
"Well, if something et one of my Kin, I'd be a might shook up too. Eye for an eye. Shoot it."
His voice came out of the dark where he still lingered under blur.
"I'll go back and listen at the window."
[Sorrow] The Fenrir warbeast looks from the Fury to the Gaian to the stoplight and back again. There is a low growl underneath her skin, somewhere deep in her chest. The growl is one of acknowledgment and approval, subvocal, really, a bone deep rumble inside her large frame. When Roman returns and promises to listen at the window, Sorrow shakes her head and points open handed at the lolling, slobbering bane. "Circle it hidden, take it down from behind. If what is in comes out, all the better."
The Fenrir smiles; or rather, her mouth spreads, her lips revealing a mouthful of sharp white teeth, her yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. "Out here, we can see."
With that, she melts into her hispo war-form and begins padding toward the bane, approaching it at an angle so that Adamidas has a reasonable line of sight for her shot.
[Roman Turner] "Yessum, just make sure none of them arrows miss cause I'll be behind it."
With that he melted off to circle around behind the bane. Dang it all if this didn't seem like such a smart move on his end of things when someone was going to shoot arrows in the direction you went.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Shot is lined up, and she knows she can fire them off fairly easily. It's all practice. Her mind wanders, and she doesn't like that it does. But it wanders, because it is prone to doing so.
She lines up her shot, and (alas) stands at a comfortable distance away. Three shots. Three good shots, hopefully.
[Parlour] The banes, heretofore have been more or less ignoring the Garou. They do not appear to be a threat. They've done nothing aggressive, done nothing confrontational.
As they begin to arm themselves, as Sorrow begins to slowly pad around to flank the beast, as Fate, unseen, begins to skulk to the bane's rear, this changes.
The bane snorts, lifting its shovel shaped head to narrow bale-fire green eyes toward its first threat - Rain of Brass Petals.
It begins to gather its feet underneath itself, the masticated, limp body of the gremlin falling bonelessly to the ground with a soft thud.
The Fury has a split second to act before the beast does.
[Rain of Brass Petals] This is not Glory-seeking behavior.
This is retributive behavior. She pulls her bow back, and has a split second to react before the beast does. And she hopes, sincerely, solidly, that she is a better shot than she thinks she is.
First shot, one shot. One solid shot at that. Maybe it would draw the spirits inside the pizza place out. Maybe it would scare them off. Maybe it would tip off their location.
She has a split second to act before the bane does.
So, Alethea fires off her first shot.
[Roman Turner] Beast rose, that meant he himself had to pick up speed, so he did. Preparing to act in a slightly crazy manner if necessary.
"Eight second ride, don't get shot Roman, Sparrow will kick your ass."
Ran through his brain.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Pewpew!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6) [WP]
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Str2+crinos4+totem1+bow 2+6=15?]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Parlour] Spirit SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Parlour] The arrows fly true. They fly more than true. They fly perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. Or so they seem at first.
Something happens. Perhaps its a breeze or the beast shifts its head, just slightly. It blinks at just the wrong moment.
The arrow hits something solid with a steady chink! and falls, askew to the ground, having been, for all appearances, headed for the bane's eye, just seconds ago.
The beast snarls as it leaps, the sound of it undercut by the amber-light gremlin's wide-mouthed, devastated wail.
(and initiative!)
[Rain of Brass Petals] {8+1d10}
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Roman Turner] +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Missed stuff?]
[Rain of Brass Petals] (okay, bane thingie...
action!
1a: shoooot iiiiit
1b: shoot it again
1c: shoot it a third time
1d: seriously, if you aren't dead yet, I'm following the wyrm.]
[Roman Turner] Gift...Resist Pain. (if that is 1a, then..)
1b. Drive for the Bane's legs to trip the sucker up in a tangle.
[Sorrow] [1 WP - Resist pain. 1a. NOM BANE. 1b. NOM BANE. Rage 1: NOM BANE.]
[Sorrow] [Nom 1! -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Parlour] note: Roman's actions are changed to 1.a tackle bane's legs and 1.b claw. No penalty.
[Sorrow] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Parlour] (-4)
[Sorrow] [Nom 2! -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Parlour] (-5!)
[Roman Turner] 1a tackle the thing that is maybe down already! LOL!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1b claw
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Parlour] (Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait!)
[Parlour] soak on attack one which is no longer tackle and is now a claw at +1!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Parlour] x_x
[Parlour] Sorrow leaps at the beast as it leaps at Rain of Brass Petals. The beast's skin shreds beneath her claws, tearing apart, a leg coming loose to flop, twitching and spasming to the ground, bleeding ichor.
It is still moving just then - still alive, its growl more like a shuddering whine as it tries to gather itself again for that great leap for its intended victim.
This is not a powerful bane. It is young, it is small, it is not powerful nor very smart. Through its mind trembles merely one, powerful, all encompassing thought.
Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.
It never gets that chance. Fate leaps onto its back. The first claw drives it to the ground. The second merely confirms its death, a final spasming throe as it goes inert beneath the Child of Gaia's weight. The blood that seeps from it is foetid. The waste it seeps as all its muscles relax is even worse.
The wailing of the little amber-light gremlin has ceased. It crouches at the lipped edge of the light-well, its hands clutching the edge of it as it leans over, wide, pupil-less eyes blinking slowly. Above it, its counter-part stands as it has throughout the entire experience. "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
Spiders begin to assemble, pulling out from their buildings, scurrying along the ground. A half block away, a bane, clinging to the side of a three storey building, screams heavenward, to a cacophony of answering clicks and snarls.
[Roman Turner] "Whew weee...that stinks like a pig wallow."
[Sorrow] Sorrow charges, runs the beast down, her head low, slaver stringing from her maw. She comes away bloodied, breathing hard, rage sparking bright in the air around her, the foul, oily not-blood of the murderspirit thick in her mouth. The violence begins and is over in less than an eyeblink. She comes up short, sharply, her lips peeling back from her teeth and snorts, clearing her senses of the taint. Then, almost delicately, she snaps the remnants of the corpse of the thing up into her jaws and pads soft-footed back in the direction from which she came, dragging the bane to lay it at the feet of the theurge and the base of the stoplight whose gremlin it savaged.
Greenie avenged.
[Roman Turner] "He followed Sorrow's example, only he picked up what remained of poor Greenie to gently cradle in his hands, carrying the remains back to the stoplight.
"Mighty sorry for your loss. He was a good Greenie and will be sorely missed."
[Sorrow] [IS A PAUSE]
Perhaps they exchange words. Plans. Conversation advice.
Eventually, they move to the inevitable. They take out mirrors, or they look into dingy, puddles at their watery reflections. If they are particularly brave or suicidal, they cross without the aid of a reflection.
No matter what, passing through the gauntlet is ...
Terrible.
It is hard like pushing through glass without breaking it. It steals the breath from their lungs. It steals their outer layer of epidermus. It weakens their bones.
Their bones, which remember when the world was never like this. When the gauntlet was so easy to cross they might be stepping over a stream. Their bones which expect the world to be the same way, though it's not, and which suffers, just a little, with every reminder.
The world on the other side is bleak, dark and colourless. The buildings are squat and flat and square, in some places, the edges and rooftops sheared off, great gaping holes where a corner should be.
It is a blasted landscape, poor and pained. It is a landscape at war.
And the Wyld is not even a contestent. Nor are the Garou.
What they see are banes, flitting through holes which on the other side are windows, glass elementals shaking and shattering before coming back together, paler than before.
They see a bane slinking up the side of a building, it's claws tearing into the building's woven and clacified side. A spider click-click-chittering as it moves, snags its long, multi-jointed leg and begins to weave it into the building. What was once oily black begins to fade to grey closest to the web, the bane spinning on a dead, trapped and calcified leg to lash out.
The pizza parlour looks no different no more special than the rest. Just a building, its windows gone and gaping, its door missing, the edges of its webbing frayed.
[Roman Turner] "Dang I hate that feeling."
He gasped, sucking in breath when he managed to push through. The city was a whole lot different on this side than home was, for one thing, it was a lot more crowded and creepy feeling. He swept his hands over his body like he was checking to make sure everything crossed or sweeping off imaginary cobwebs.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She spends her time counting seconds and making sure that she knwos what she's getting into. She spends her time thinking, because she has to think about these sorts of things. She finds herself wondering. Adam finds a lot of things, but none of them are so importnat as the feeling she's dealing with, the thought of what do I do now?
There are garou with her. One she does not know. Another she knows well enough. None of them are her sisters; Alethea's come to peace with that.
The gauntlet, even for her [especially for her], is difficult to push through. Slip through, not shatter. And that is the problem. They aren't looking to shatter the glass. Shattering it would be easy. Breaking things seems to be easier than just passing. Easier to cause destruction than leave it intact.
She doesn't want to know what would happen if they just ripped the gauntlet to pieces. She's not sure what it would do. [Would it be so bad?]
The glass is weak and shaking here. Pale and breakable. Banes claw through the building. It's all the same. This is what Cabrini Green looks like.
"We need to stay together," she says. The Fury presses forward. It is either curiosity or bad decision making that makes her head on. She's looking for something... different. She's looking at everything, though. And anything her eyes will let her take in.
[Sorrow] Combat the Wyrm whereever it breeds and dwells. It breeds and dwells here. It breeds and dwells everywhere on this side of the gauntlet, in the city's poorest district, where murders are more commonly committed than even the easiest of good deeds. One world feeds the other: ourouborous. They push through the Gauntlet someplace hidden and dark, the alley, out of sight of any humans who might be watching the street through the slats of their cheap plastic (lead-laden, Chinese-manufactured) blinds, and out of sight on the dealers who have made Sully's pizza marginally successful even in the wake of their gruesome murders.
"Me too," Kora replies to Roman when they are all accounted for, her voice low and quiet. Her skin crawls, here, the substrate of being underneath her flesh as she completes a slow survey of the blasted street scene, focusing at last on the pizza parlor, her dark eyes narrowed in that direction.
"Nothing to mark the place on the outside," she says, her mouth hooking upward at the right corner. " - so let's look more closely. How," to Roman, she continues, " - are your scouting skills?"
[Roman Turner] "Well, I think I scout ok. And since we are on this side of things, ain't got no worries of hiding from regular folk."
He pulled his hat off, gave it a brief kiss and began the muscle rending, bone popping, snapping process of shifting until he was in warform. Then he pulled on the Gift of Blur, hoping it worked this time.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She nods. And the Fury waits. During this time,s he's checking her pockets for whatever talens she might have or what-have-you... alas, the Fury doesn't come up with much, which makes her frown.
"Tell us what you see?"
And, for now, she waits.
[Roman Turner] ((Man+stealth for blur))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Sorrow] "Cool," is the Skald's quiet reply. Her attention remains on Roman, intent, watching him. If he's visible, obvious - if the gift fails - she'll let him know. Some Garou seem - more in the Umbra, more real, stronger, their breeding takes on a sort of spiritual presence that imbues them with weight greater than their own renown or rank - the memory of centuries.
Kora is not one of these Garou. Roman invokes his gift, though - and Kora gives the place where the young Gaian was a strained smile. "That's not bad," she admits, her voice a lean thread, quiet and low. "Adamidas?" Then, glancing at the young Fury, the edge of another strained half-smile marking the shape of her mouth. "Remember when you couldn't talk, you learned the moon-dancer's gift? It might be worth linking us up when he's in place, so we know what's going on with him, yeah?"
[Roman Turner] He grew in size and after a bit of concentration he became a little harder to concentrate on.
"I'll go take a look and if nothing eats my face, I'll come back and get y'all?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "Depends on the benefit," she says, "if we do that, response times will be slower. A lot slower, because it can get really distracting. It's like you have to process the same amount of information in two different planes. Right now, I don't think it would be worth it."
She nods once.
[Roman Turner] He whispered out of the dark.
"Gonna slip ahead, if I run into trouble, y'all will be the second to know."
[Sorrow] "Listen," Kora says, her chin rising as she looks up and up and up the place where Roman must've been, sensing the change of mass if nothing else, her expression still has that faint smile to it. It's just her mouth, that curve, like the edge of a boomerang, like the sliver of a crescent moon against the greater shade of its absence. It does not reach her dark eyes. Her voice is firm, though, and direct. " - no heroics in this. You're taking a look and you're coming back. You're not charging in. If something notices you, skedaddle. We'll be close, yeah? Do your job and come back."
She cuts a glance at Adam, then - nodding. "Good point."
Then: when Roman whispers his intention, Kora nods, and she too changes, leaning forward as her body bulks and her joints crack and split and crack again, until she is four-pawed on the ground, wearing the more feral of their warforms.
[Parlour] This is not a quiet area. The banes wail, screech and cry. The spiders chitter, and the tips of their appendages click-clack-clacking over concrete and webbing. It is a continuous mutter of disorienting cacophony.
There is a street light some ways down. Inside the metal wells are small creatures, tiny gremlins with eyes to match the colour which they represent. They call out their roles as each come up - the green-light gremlin cheerful and bouncing. The amber-light gremlin nervous and cautious. The red-light gremlin: frazzled and panicked.
A bane slowly winds its way up the post, its tail lashing like a cat's, its legs wide-elbowed and wrapping around the post as it climbs. When it reaches the traffic light, it slowly lifts up a long clawed appendage. It is utterly silent. The green-light gremlin shrieks, crashing itself against the back of its tiny home, wailing as its dragged out, while the amber-light gremlin shrieks.
The red-light gremlin looks down, appalled, jaw agape before drawing in a visible, shaking breath and shouting out "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
In the real world: the traffic lights at the intersection go dark. Moments later, the stop light begins to flash rhythmically.
Roman, quiet and half-hidden by his gift begins to sneak, prowling toward the parlour. It is empty-eyed and dark.
[Roman Turner] Noise was good, noise helped cover the sound of his movements. He got his orders and slipped off while they were still being issued. He caught part of that gremlin/hunt event and wondered if one of the banes had eaten whatever light might of still lingered in the building. As he drew closer and closer he was straining his hearing and watching for movement in the dark openings. And he headed for the first opening that was big enough to allow his new mass inside.
[Roman Turner] per+alert
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Failure at target 7)
[Sorrow] perception + alertness
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[Rain of Brass Petals] [I see things!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 10 (Failure at target 8)
[Rain of Brass Petals] She does this because she has time now.
She takes her time, and either enjoys th emoment or just lives in it. Whatever it is, this has the Fury shifting upward, on to her warform, and gtting readly. She has to be armed. Her bow is dedicated, her aim is true, and she has about fifteen arrows left.
Fifteen's a good
By the time she looks away from the stoplight, she looks back in the building. She doesn't see a thing. Huh. The Fury cocks her head to the side and tries to peer inside. She doesn't see anything, no matter how hard she looks. Maybe they were wrong..?
[Roman Turner] He looked, he listened and so far nothing. Not only were the openings dark, but seemed to him like nothing was there. Just in case, he entered to take another look and listen.
[Parlour] Like this, in this form, Sorrow's brain is more attuned to sound, to smell, than sight. It is better than it might have been in lupus, but is still imperfect.
So the beast does not see much. What she does do is smell. Hear. Beneath the sound of cacophonic screeching of gremlins, the busy chaos of the city street on the Umbral side, she can hear a slow, careful scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape of claws from the direction of the building. She can smell the scent of old, rotted blood on the wind.
to Sorrow
[Parlour] For all the chaos around them, not much is paying attention to them. A spider crawls in front of Sorrow's feet, but does not touch her, intent on its nearby target, a nearby building's window frame, a large chunk taken from it. It begins to spin it's web, slowly uncoiling calcification from its spinnerets. A bane leaps to the ground a half dozen feet away, before leaping away again, propelled by frog-like hind legs as it leaps to the top of a building, the entire structure shaking with the impact, causing several spiders to fall, upside down to the ground.
Their legs windmill uselessly, chattering in panic, the pitch painfully high. From near by, a single spider clacks over, its own chittering a lower tone than that of its fellows as it begins the long suffering job of flipping each one back to its feet so it might return to its role.
Up ahead, Fate, shrouded in his gift must turn sideways to enter the building through the doorway.
[Roman Turner] He not only turned sideways to squeeze through the doorway, but he ducked his head some too because he didn't want baby spiders or something on his head. His ears swiveled as he listened for sounds of movement within.
[Sorrow] Communication is more difficult in this form. The best mind takes over. Even the high tongue is foreshortened, touched by the feral, hardly eloquent - suited for the most basic of concepts. Roman is blurred ahead, quiet. Adamidas is pulling her dedicated bow and shifting into her warform. The great hispo beast a few steps ahead of her turns, lifts her nose to the wind and sniffs audibly to indicate that there is a scent on the wind. Her great head swings in a deep arc of motion toward the pizza parlor, then she lifts her rightmost front paw, deliberately unsheathing her claws and pawing the air.
Her ears are perked, twisting toward the building, and she continues forward, halving the distance toward the pizza parlor, keeping the building within sight, her tail low with caution, her frame taut with awareness, the beast's muscles bunched and wary, ready to spring forward.
[Roman Turner] He was inside only a moment before he quickly squeezed back out the doorway and high tailed it back to give his report even if they couldn't see his ass.
"Mess inside. Stinks like rotted blood. No spiders alive in there, but something is upstairs or on the ceiling, I could hear it breathing and slipping along.
[Rain of Brass Petals] There's a report, and she listens. The Fury focuses, and relies now more on the nonverbal communication skills she's garnered over the amount of time she spent not talking. Nods once, then peers towards the place.
It smells like rotting blood.
The Spiders are dead.
Something is on the ceiling.
"If it's on the ceiling, we're going to have an issue of reach," she says.
[Roman Turner] "It was above in the dark, I heard it slithering and breathing like it done went eight seconds. Ain't no lights in there."
[Sorrow] When the Gaian's growling voice marks his return, Sorrow changes again, rearing back like a grizzly going from four legs to two. She has iron-gray fur in this form and feral yellow eyes that sweep from Adamidas to Roman and back again. "I can smell the blood from here, and heard the claws." She cuts a look back toward the building, eying it from the street, gauging her size in Crinos against the building's height, looking, too, to see how tall it is.
"Adamidas," the Fenrir returns, her voice deep in this form, no longer feminine - merely Garou, animal, beast-like, " - is there a spirit you can convince to help us, give us light?" She glances up, searching the street for the ghostly traces of streetlamps and the small spirits that inhabit them. "Fate, are there windows? Can we go in at once, or will we be exposed in the doorway when we enter?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "I'll try and come up with something. This isn't the place for fireflies... fate, when you looked inside, do you remember anything about the electrical systems? Did the building look damaged, or just dark?"
She pauses, then took a second to look at the moon. An idea formed, quietly. She grinned a little, and got on with potentially summoning an electrical gaffling. May as well try.
[Roman Turner] "There was blood all over the walls, all over everything. It's busted up in there like something went wild. I didn't notice any wires or anything, it was pretty dark in there. And yes, there are windows."
[Roman Turner] He looked between the pair, watching the changes in Kora and waiting. His job was scout and backup. So now it was a matter of waiting for orders while making sure nothing came back out the door after he had left it. Of course he couldn't resist looking at the stop light a time or two. Any other time he might of enjoyed squishing the hunting bane.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She looks at the stoplight gremlin- the ones that were left anyway. The Fury takes a few steps to the stoplight, and looks up. Its little companion was gone. The yellow light was hiding. The red light was yelling stop stop stop stop, and, really, some part of her hurt it think about this.
"Excuse me," she calls up. She sounds dismayed, but that's all that comes across in non-spirit-speech to others. She talks to the gremlins, "we need help... and... if we helped you get even for your other friend, would you help us see in there?"
[Parlour] The amber-light gremlin wails from its small little home, curled up in its farthest corner. "KILLED GREENIE. KILLED GREENIE DEAD."
The red-light gremlin continues, undaunted. "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
"GREENIE!"
Half way down the block, the bane is curled into the gutter, it's too-large body spilling over it, its body wrapped around the lifeless body of the green-light gremlin, its head flaccid and flung back, its eyes a dull dying-grass hue. Its bones crunch between the bane's teeth. It slobbers as it sucks at the marrow.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She stopped, and looked athe the Bane. And, at that moment, she wasn't pleased. Not at all. She looked at the
"They're really upset," she said, the Fury is looking at the bane. And takes an arrow out... then another, then a third, and starts to line up her shot.
"Shh," she says, and she is calm and about as comforting as she can be, "I'm sorry this happened."
With the promise something would make this better.
She turns back to the two of them and speaks.
"I know this probably isn't going to work, but we can't just let that-" she gestures to the stoplight "-happen. That's not right."
[Roman Turner] He scratched behind one tufted ear, having only understood one side of the conversation.
"Well, if something et one of my Kin, I'd be a might shook up too. Eye for an eye. Shoot it."
His voice came out of the dark where he still lingered under blur.
"I'll go back and listen at the window."
[Sorrow] The Fenrir warbeast looks from the Fury to the Gaian to the stoplight and back again. There is a low growl underneath her skin, somewhere deep in her chest. The growl is one of acknowledgment and approval, subvocal, really, a bone deep rumble inside her large frame. When Roman returns and promises to listen at the window, Sorrow shakes her head and points open handed at the lolling, slobbering bane. "Circle it hidden, take it down from behind. If what is in comes out, all the better."
The Fenrir smiles; or rather, her mouth spreads, her lips revealing a mouthful of sharp white teeth, her yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. "Out here, we can see."
With that, she melts into her hispo war-form and begins padding toward the bane, approaching it at an angle so that Adamidas has a reasonable line of sight for her shot.
[Roman Turner] "Yessum, just make sure none of them arrows miss cause I'll be behind it."
With that he melted off to circle around behind the bane. Dang it all if this didn't seem like such a smart move on his end of things when someone was going to shoot arrows in the direction you went.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Shot is lined up, and she knows she can fire them off fairly easily. It's all practice. Her mind wanders, and she doesn't like that it does. But it wanders, because it is prone to doing so.
She lines up her shot, and (alas) stands at a comfortable distance away. Three shots. Three good shots, hopefully.
[Parlour] The banes, heretofore have been more or less ignoring the Garou. They do not appear to be a threat. They've done nothing aggressive, done nothing confrontational.
As they begin to arm themselves, as Sorrow begins to slowly pad around to flank the beast, as Fate, unseen, begins to skulk to the bane's rear, this changes.
The bane snorts, lifting its shovel shaped head to narrow bale-fire green eyes toward its first threat - Rain of Brass Petals.
It begins to gather its feet underneath itself, the masticated, limp body of the gremlin falling bonelessly to the ground with a soft thud.
The Fury has a split second to act before the beast does.
[Rain of Brass Petals] This is not Glory-seeking behavior.
This is retributive behavior. She pulls her bow back, and has a split second to react before the beast does. And she hopes, sincerely, solidly, that she is a better shot than she thinks she is.
First shot, one shot. One solid shot at that. Maybe it would draw the spirits inside the pizza place out. Maybe it would scare them off. Maybe it would tip off their location.
She has a split second to act before the bane does.
So, Alethea fires off her first shot.
[Roman Turner] Beast rose, that meant he himself had to pick up speed, so he did. Preparing to act in a slightly crazy manner if necessary.
"Eight second ride, don't get shot Roman, Sparrow will kick your ass."
Ran through his brain.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Pewpew!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6) [WP]
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Str2+crinos4+totem1+bow 2+6=15?]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Parlour] Spirit SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Parlour] The arrows fly true. They fly more than true. They fly perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. Or so they seem at first.
Something happens. Perhaps its a breeze or the beast shifts its head, just slightly. It blinks at just the wrong moment.
The arrow hits something solid with a steady chink! and falls, askew to the ground, having been, for all appearances, headed for the bane's eye, just seconds ago.
The beast snarls as it leaps, the sound of it undercut by the amber-light gremlin's wide-mouthed, devastated wail.
(and initiative!)
[Rain of Brass Petals] {8+1d10}
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Roman Turner] +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Missed stuff?]
[Rain of Brass Petals] (okay, bane thingie...
action!
1a: shoooot iiiiit
1b: shoot it again
1c: shoot it a third time
1d: seriously, if you aren't dead yet, I'm following the wyrm.]
[Roman Turner] Gift...Resist Pain. (if that is 1a, then..)
1b. Drive for the Bane's legs to trip the sucker up in a tangle.
[Sorrow] [1 WP - Resist pain. 1a. NOM BANE. 1b. NOM BANE. Rage 1: NOM BANE.]
[Sorrow] [Nom 1! -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Parlour] note: Roman's actions are changed to 1.a tackle bane's legs and 1.b claw. No penalty.
[Sorrow] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Parlour] (-4)
[Sorrow] [Nom 2! -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Parlour] (-5!)
[Roman Turner] 1a tackle the thing that is maybe down already! LOL!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1b claw
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Parlour] (Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait!)
[Parlour] soak on attack one which is no longer tackle and is now a claw at +1!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Parlour] x_x
[Parlour] Sorrow leaps at the beast as it leaps at Rain of Brass Petals. The beast's skin shreds beneath her claws, tearing apart, a leg coming loose to flop, twitching and spasming to the ground, bleeding ichor.
It is still moving just then - still alive, its growl more like a shuddering whine as it tries to gather itself again for that great leap for its intended victim.
This is not a powerful bane. It is young, it is small, it is not powerful nor very smart. Through its mind trembles merely one, powerful, all encompassing thought.
Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.
It never gets that chance. Fate leaps onto its back. The first claw drives it to the ground. The second merely confirms its death, a final spasming throe as it goes inert beneath the Child of Gaia's weight. The blood that seeps from it is foetid. The waste it seeps as all its muscles relax is even worse.
The wailing of the little amber-light gremlin has ceased. It crouches at the lipped edge of the light-well, its hands clutching the edge of it as it leans over, wide, pupil-less eyes blinking slowly. Above it, its counter-part stands as it has throughout the entire experience. "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
Spiders begin to assemble, pulling out from their buildings, scurrying along the ground. A half block away, a bane, clinging to the side of a three storey building, screams heavenward, to a cacophony of answering clicks and snarls.
[Roman Turner] "Whew weee...that stinks like a pig wallow."
[Sorrow] Sorrow charges, runs the beast down, her head low, slaver stringing from her maw. She comes away bloodied, breathing hard, rage sparking bright in the air around her, the foul, oily not-blood of the murderspirit thick in her mouth. The violence begins and is over in less than an eyeblink. She comes up short, sharply, her lips peeling back from her teeth and snorts, clearing her senses of the taint. Then, almost delicately, she snaps the remnants of the corpse of the thing up into her jaws and pads soft-footed back in the direction from which she came, dragging the bane to lay it at the feet of the theurge and the base of the stoplight whose gremlin it savaged.
Greenie avenged.
[Roman Turner] "He followed Sorrow's example, only he picked up what remained of poor Greenie to gently cradle in his hands, carrying the remains back to the stoplight.
"Mighty sorry for your loss. He was a good Greenie and will be sorely missed."
[Sorrow] [IS A PAUSE]
Post a Comment